Moroccan dairy drink: Raibi

Raibi is a dairy drink we grew up enjoying cold or frozen. It
used to be sold in Mahlabas (dairy shops) or small grocery shops.

Back in 1966, Centrale Laitiere was the first company to
make Raibi. In the last 10 years, more competition came in and we even enjoyed a
better product from them while the original version has become more watery.

Homemade Raibi with natural ingredients

In its original form, it was a liquid yoghurt with grenadine
syrup/flavouring. After a few decades of success, we had a green Raibi
with pistachio flavour. The green version is not as famous as the original version though.

If you ask any Moroccan born after 1966 and living away from
home, Raibi would be an iconic childhood drink and they will instantly look for it whenever they're back to Morocco while in some countries, it's been imported to cater for this category.

Different brands of Raibi in a supermarket. The family size is fairly new

How many of us dipped Henry’s biscuits (the other iconic
childhood thing) in Raibi or made a porridge out of the two? Who didn’t drink
Raibi from the bottom by pulling a bit of the plastic with their teeth to make
a small hole?

Are you one of those who froze Raibi to make a cold
ice-cream treat during hot summer days? Or did you make a fruit salad adding
Raibi to it along with orange juice?

Which one of Raibi-addict are you?

Anyway, come night time, l thought I’ll share one Raibi with
my little one. It was about 9 pm and we were all awake watching TV to fill
those long summer nights..

My boy was due to sleep at 10 pm. At 10.30 pm he was so
hyper that he didn’t stop walking back and fourth, making noise, rotating on
himself..

I naively told my nieces: “I guess Raibi was the cause
behind his condition” but I was rather thinking about the sugar in it. We laughed at the idea and let it go. My boy got to a level when he became genuinely tired and fell
asleep.

Fast-forward 4 months, I tried to make Raibi the only way I
know which is to use a grenadine syrup to my dairy mix. This recipe is actually
quite famous over the Internet and it was on since 2010 if I reckon.

A small dose of red colouring from beetroot makes a wonderful alternative

Then I remembered my old cake decoration classes where the Tutor
told us to avoid giving some chemical colourings to children. I have googled
the edible colourings and found out that in France some of them have become parents' enemies to the extend that brands had to review some of their recipes.

One of the “bad” colourings was the red used in most of the
grenadine syrups we are familiar with (in Morocco, it would be sirop Duval or
sirop Sport).

Homemade grenadine (pomogranate) and beetroot syrup

Being in UK, I checked 3 brands who have a chemical red
colouring with a note that it will cause hyper-activity to children. If you are lucky to find one without the dodgy ingredients, you may just use it without having to make your own syrup.

So that is only a part of the problem. The other part is
that grenadine syrup is one of the biggest jokes of this modern world: they
hardly contain any pomegranate or grenadine in them. They usually have other
red fruits in the mix. So what you get is not what you think you are getting. One of the main reasons is undoubtedly the cost of the fruit, which prompted manufacturers to replace it with artificial flavours.

So I decided to make my favourite Raibi with safe and
authentic ingredients for my little family to enjoy without harming anyone.

Ingredients

Serves 4

Prep: 2 min (with syrup ready to use)

500 ml of buttermilk (if you use thick buttermilk mix it with 50ml of cold water or milk)

80 g of vanilla yoghurt (I personally use one with real vanilla beans)

80g of strawberry or raspberry yoghurt

1 tbsp of dried milk powder (optional)

3-4 tbsps of grenadine syrup (see recipe below)

1 tiny slice of pre-cooked beetroot.

If you can't get hold of nice seedless pomogranates, use this juice to make the syrup

Preparation

Mix all ingredients in a blender and serve cold.

Recipe for grenadine syrup

Cold method

Mix equal amount of pomegranate seeds and sugar (say 200g/200g), bruise the seeds and set aside for a few hours until it turns to a syrup.

Hot method (makes about 30 cl)

Mix 400g pomegranate seeds (*) with 200g of water (**), bring the ingredients to a boil and let simmer over medium heat for 10-15 min.

Mash up the seeds with a potato masher. Pass them through a strainer and press them thoroughly. Weight the liquid and add the equivalent of its weight in sugar.

Bring again to a boil and let simmer another 10 mins until the liquid thickens. Add a few drops of strawberry or raspberry extract (optional).

Set aside to cool. It will thicken further more.

Use the syrup cold.

* You could replace with a 100% store-bought pomogranate juice.

** The water I have used for this syrup is basically the same I gathered from the boiled beetroot. This made my syrup turn red "blood" instead of pinky red, without the addition of any chemical colouring. If you make it that way, you can use the beetroot in your salad or to make a Moroccan beetroot juice.

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About Author

I'm Nada, a London-based Moroccan food expert. I am a mother of two little boys who keeps my hands full. I lived in different places and that made me realize how I miss Moroccan food. I moved to write extensively about it and I hope you will enjoy reading my posts and trying my family recipes as much as I enjoy writing them. You can also find me at tasteofmaroc.com where I publish authentic recipes and write about some cultural aspects of the Moroccan society.

About Me

I'm Nada, a London-based Moroccan food expert. I am a mother of two little boys who keeps my hands full. I lived in different places and that made me realize how I miss Moroccan food. I moved to write extensively about it and I hope you will enjoy reading my posts and trying my family recipes as much as I enjoy writing them. You can also find me at tasteofmaroc.com where I publish authentic recipes and write about some cultural aspects of the Moroccan society.